Trump leaves Congress in dark on Mideast deployment to counter Iran
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says Congress has yet to hear back from the Donald Trump administration on how long a fresh rotation of troops, ships and planes sent to counter Iran will remain in the Middle East.
The Donald Trump administration has yet to inform Congress on how long it will keep troops, a carrier group, bombers and missile defense batteries in the Middle East that were recently sent to the region to counter threats from Iranian-backed proxy groups, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said today.
Just hours after the commander of US forces in the region publicly hinted at plans to restore a larger American military presence to the Middle East, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said the Pentagon had not “given us any indication of how long this is going to last or where they think they see it going.”
Smith, who is tasked with overseeing the Pentagon’s strategy to shift more troops and weapons to counter China’s growing military power, conceded that the State Department’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign was having an economic effect on Iran. But he wondered whether the US administration’s approach could provoke an attack from Iran.
“If we’re backing them into this corner, what do we expect to get out of it? What is the negotiation? What do we want from Iran?” Smith told a gathering of defense reporters in Washington. “Do we just want a long-term battle, long-term stalemate? What’s the next step? If Iran feels existentially threatened, there’s a distinct likelihood that they’re going to lash out. And if they lash out, how do we respond?”
